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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26955877">The Slow Path</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MechBull/pseuds/MechBull'>MechBull</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>As the World Turns</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canonical Character Death, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:54:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,906</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26955877</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MechBull/pseuds/MechBull</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke survives.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Reid Oliver/Luke Snyder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted to LiveJournal on February 10, 2011</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>The sun glints off Reid’s bare skin, and small droplets roll down his chest. He’s laughing as he tackles Luke and sends them both under the water of Snyder Pond. When they surface, they’re kissing… The air is bitterly cold, and Reid is complaining about being dragged along by Luke for Christmas shopping. Not that Reid complaining is anything unusual, but this time it almost makes Luke nervous. Reid is remembering Texas weather fondly, and Luke doesn’t want him to get any ideas about moving back there. He reaches out quickly for Reid’s hand, pulls him close, whispers suggestively in his ear that as soon as they get somewhere private, he’ll warm Reid up. He steps away then, continues to walk. Reid doesn’t let go of his hand… Reid is inside him, filling him, driving him to the brink of ecstasy. It’s their first time together and it surpasses all of Luke’s expectations. He doesn't remember why he wanted to wait now. He can't understand how they managed to… Reid laughing… Reid telling Luke he loves him... Reid gloating over his 100th win at chess… Reid celebrating an unlikely success, another patient saved against all odds… Reid… Reid… Reid…</i>
</p><p>Luke wakes up alone. The waiting room is dark and silent. He is aware there are other people around somewhere, huddling together as they wait for news of Chris. He wants to be by himself, though. He asks his parents to stay away. Whenever someone comes into the room, he responds with the barest minimum reply until they leave. He needs to be alone.</p><p>He chases after the fleeting images still lingering in his mind. He desperately wants them to be prophecies, predictions of the future. He knows they aren’t, though. He knows they are dreams that will never come true.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Days after Reid…, Luke manages to perform something resembling a normal routine. He is in Java with his grandmother when Noah arrives. And when Luke finds out Noah is planning to give up his amazing opportunity just to stay in Oakdale, Luke becomes possessed with the need to convince him to leave.<p>In some small, dark, quiet corner of his mind, Luke recognizes that there would have been a time when he’d be on that plane with Noah. There would have been a time when Noah leaving him behind would have destroyed him. But now, Luke just pushes Noah, steamrollers over his objections in a way that will make Katie and his grandmother proud when they hear about it. Luke wants Noah to leave, for his own sake as well as Luke’s. He still loves Noah and he wants him to be happy. And he knows in a way that Noah hasn’t accepted yet that that future happiness will never be found with him and certainly not in Oakdale.</p><p>As Noah disappears from sight, though, as Luke stands alone in the quiet studio, all he can feel is resentment growing into rage. He fights the scream bubbling up inside of him. Every morning when he wakes up and sometimes when he’s alone and remembering, he touches his fingers to his lips, feels the last kiss Reid gave him, the last time his mouth touched Reid’s skin before they wheeled him away. It should have been his choice to give that up. And now all he can taste is Noah pressing against him.</p><p>It doesn’t surprise Luke, not really. It is simply the latest in a long series of selfish acts Noah has hurt him with.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Almost one month after Reid…, Luke finds the courage to drive out towards Bay City, towards the tracks. He goes alone, and he doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going. Beyond a few gouged and scarred trees, there is no evidence of the accident. Luke wonders for a minute if he’s even at the right crossing.<p>He looks around, hoping for some sign, some…something. Some message, maybe even an apology, from beyond. He feels there should be a gaping hole in the world here. This is where a good man was killed, and it shouldn’t look so peaceful and normal.</p><p>Luke climbs out of the car and he walks the few feet to the steel rail. He stares at it. He balances on one foot and suspends his other just above. He cannot touch it. He cannot step down. He cannot cross.</p><p>No one has mentioned anything. Maybe it hasn’t even really been noticeable. But Luke knows that he’s a prisoner right now, fenced in by the tracks here and the ones at varying distances in the other directions from Oakdale. He hasn’t admitted to anyone yet that he doesn’t think he can drive or walk or even ride a bike across them. Maybe he can fly somewhere, but what is the point? Reid is in Oakdale, and that is where Luke will stay. Luke convinces himself <i>that</i> is why he doesn’t venture too far; it’s not because of the fear that clutches at his heart with every phantom blow of a nonexistent whistle.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Luke spends a lot of time at the pond these days. He tries to keep his mind clear of every thought. He just stares out over the water, not really focusing on anything.<p>Sometimes, Katie joins him. She sits next to him and neither of them says a word. Luke wants to ask her to stop coming, wants to blame her in a way she doesn’t deserve, but he doesn’t.</p><p>And one day, he speaks.</p><p>“I don’t know why I put his ashes here,” he whispers.</p><p>He senses Katie look at him, but he doesn’t turn to meet her eyes.</p><p>“The hospital was understandable. But this pond, it doesn’t – didn’t mean anything to us. We didn’t spend any time here. It’s an important place to me, but there really was no place I could think of that is – was important to <i>him</i> and me. Your apartment? Java? The elevator at the Lakeview? None of those would have really been appropriate.”</p><p>Katie is silent for a long time. Then she shrugs. “I don’t know. I think he would have liked it here. I think, if nothing else, he would have wanted to be somewhere you can be with him.”</p><p>Luke sighs.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Luke has the house to himself, and he’s thankful for it. The girls and Ethan are at the farm, so he doesn’t have to deal with Natalie’s awkward sympathy and Faith’s inconsiderate surliness. Or Ethan’s clueless disappointment that Luke doesn’t play with him anymore. And his parents are on a date. After the years of his life Luke has spent fretting over the state of their relationship, he finds he doesn’t care this time whether they work it out or not.<p>Luke has the house to himself, but he’s not alone. He holds his hands to his ears, pressing and squeezing in an attempt to quiet the voices. He’s scared sometimes that he’s losing his mind. Often, the bittersweet memories of conversations with Reid comfort him. But not tonight. Tonight, he hears Reid’s broken, straining attempts to talk as the life leaves his body. He hears Reid demanding he take care of himself and ensure they have a future, not long before he himself throws away any chance they have at a life together. He hears Bob telling him there’s nothing the doctors can do. He hears Tom encouraging him to sign the papers before it’s too late for Chris also.</p><p>The voices won’t stop. They won’t stop, no matter what Luke does. He hurries downstairs with half-formed plans of physical exercise or going to town and losing himself in a crowd. He stops immediately, though, when he sees the bottles in the corner bar. He knows that is one way to clear his mind. It’s not like he has to keep his promise to Reid anymore. Reid has already broken all of the promises he made to Luke.</p><p>Even still, once Luke lines up the bottles on the table and places an empty glass in front of them, all he can do is sit down, rest his chin on his crossed arms, and stare at them. He doesn’t know where to start. And some tiny little voice in his head, nearly drowned out by all the others, is screaming at him to stop.</p><p>That is how Holden and Lily find him when they come home an hour later. His mother exclaims, begs him to tell her how much he’s had, wants to take him to the hospital to pump his stomach. She reminds him that they are his partners in this and will always be there for him and he needs to come to them first, if it ever gets to be too much. Luke ignores her and goes upstairs again.</p><p>In the morning, Luke goes downstairs for breakfast. Every bottle in the house is now empty and in the recycling bin. Luke skips breakfast and he goes to a meeting instead. Carly is there, watching him carefully. Luke wonders if this was her regular meeting or if his mother or father called her. She doesn’t say anything, for which Luke is grateful. She just sits quietly two rows back, and at the end, she pours him a cup of coffee.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Reid has been…It’s been six weeks now, and Luke gets word that Damian is being transferred to another facility. Damian has asked for him, and Luke is feeling <i>off</i> enough to go. He sits in the visiting room on one side of a glass wall, and he waits for Damian to appear. He feels nothing when he sees Damian’s face. At one time that would have been odd, but Luke is now used to his emotions making no sense.<p>Damian asks how he is and Luke shrugs.</p><p>After a pause, Damian says, “I heard about your – ”</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about it,” Luke replies. “That isn’t why I came here.”</p><p>“What do you want to talk about?”</p><p>“You’re the one who wanted me to come,” Luke reminds him.</p><p>Damian sighs. He looks down at his handcuffed wrists and then back up at Luke. “I want us to have a relationship. I know you are angry with me, my son, but everything I did was out of love for you and your mother.”</p><p>Luke stares at him for a long time. “I don’t think you know what that means. Love.”</p><p>“I love you, Luciano,” Damian repeats urgently. “I want you to be happy.”</p><p>Sudden tears spring to Luke’s eyes, and he blinks them away angrily. He looks to the side and inhales. When he looks back at Damian, he’s resolute again.</p><p>“I don’t get to be. I accept that now. I still don’t quite understand it, you know. Why aren’t I allowed to be happy?” Luke shrugs. “Maybe it’s genetics. Or karma. Or just bad luck.”</p><p>Damian sighs. “You’re wrong. You will be happy again.”</p><p>“Whether that’s true or not,” Luke answers coldly. “you won’t get to see it. I used to believe in second chances. But life is too short to waste on the hope that a person will change.”</p><p>When he leaves the prison, Luke doesn’t look back, and he regrets nothing.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Luke abstains from the chief of staff vote. Despite his lobbying for Chris, he can’t actually vote <i>against</i> Reid, even if he can’t vote <i>for</i> him now. What’s more, Luke has reservations about someone with such poor judgment about their own health being ultimately in charge of the whole town’s. He also resents the fact that Chris has basically stopped campaigning for the position anyway, that he doesn’t seem to care if he gets it or not. At the same time, he knows the competition for the job was all but responsible for Reid’s… He doesn’t want it all to be in vain.<p>Luke is used to feeling conflicting emotions such as these by now. And they become even more complex moments after the tallies are counted and Susan Stewart is named the new chief of staff. A wave of disappointment crashes over Luke. And at the same time, he tries to hide his smile. Chris doesn’t deserve the job, as far as Luke is concerned.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>It’s very cold out, although it still hasn’t snowed yet. Luke wraps his jacket around himself tightly, and he sits on a log instead of the hard ground. The surface of the pond shivers whenever the wind whips over it, and Luke wonders if it will finally freeze over soon.<p>“Brrr!” Katie’s exclamation announces her presence, and Luke shifts slightly to the side to make room for her.</p><p>She sits down next to him, closer than she normally does, but Luke doesn’t mind the added warmth.</p><p>“How’s Chris?” he asks.</p><p>And then Katie shrugs. Luke nods at the confirmation of the rumors he’s heard.</p><p>“Good, as far as I know.”</p><p>Luke doesn’t know whether to feel bad that Reid’s heart got broken, or vindictively joyful that Chris lost, or bizarrely disappointed for himself. He has taken comfort in the fact that, if he couldn’t listen to the sound of Reid’s heart beating, then at least Katie could. At least Reid’s heart was still with someone the man himself had loved.</p><p>“Why’d you…?” he asks.</p><p>Katie shrugs. She looks out over the pond as she searches for words to explain. “It annoyed me that he gave up with the chief of staff thing. It reminded me how flighty he can be, and how much Jacob and I don’t need that in our lives. That was the last straw, I guess.”</p><p>Luke nods slowly.</p><p>“I think,” Katie continues, “I stayed with him even longer than I really wanted to because I thought…I thought that Reid wouldn’t have tried so hard if it hadn’t been for me. I felt guilty about that. And I didn’t want to waste his efforts.”</p><p>Luke smiles softly. “I don’t know about that, actually. I think he tried hard because he was an arrogant surgeon who liked to win and wouldn’t recognize his own limits.”</p><p>Katie chuckles. “Maybe.”</p><p>They are both silent for a minute.</p><p>“Even if that’s true,” Katie says, “a part of me still blames Chris. He put Reid in such an impossible position, and maybe if he hadn’t, Reid wouldn’t have felt so personally responsible, you know?”</p><p>“Katie,” Luke points out. “Maybe you’re just grieving now. You shouldn’t end things with Chris if you might regret it later.”</p><p>“I won’t,” Katie confesses. “I do care about Chris, but I never did like that, not enough anyway. I felt like it was something I <i>should</i> do. Everyone was telling me it was time, that I had to move on and live again. Chris was pushing me most of all. But I don’t think I was ready. And his illness just heightened everything into a frenzy, and it brought a lot of stuff back for me, and so I wasn’t really thinking straight. But now that things have calmed down somewhat…” Katie shrugs. “I look around at the happy couples in town. I remember – I just remember how Reid felt about you and how I felt about Brad and…I don’t feel that way for Chris. I want to wait for someone that does make me feel like that again.”</p><p>Luke is silent for a long time.</p><p>“I understand,” he finally says. “There are…some people are telling me it’s time to…You know, to ‘get back out there.’ It’s only been a few months, but they don’t understand – they don’t think Reid and I were together long enough to, I don’t know, to warrant how I feel. They think I just need to…”</p><p>“Don’t,’ Katie advises. “Wait until you’re ready. Only you can decide that.”</p><p>Luke sighs. “I don’t know if I ever will be.”</p><p>“You will. You better; I don’t think Reid would want – ”</p><p>Luke interrupts her with a bark of laughter. “Are you kidding me? Reid would <i>love</i> it if I mourned him for the rest of my life.”</p><p>“He’d want you to be happy,” Katie argued.</p><p>“That doesn’t mean he’d want me to be with someone else. You don’t even realize how jealous he could get over Noah. Nope. At the very, very least, he’d want me to compare everyone I ever met to him and conclude that they only could ever be second-best. Which wouldn’t be too difficult, really. How do you compete against someone who could make the blind see?”</p><p>Katie’s chuckle echoes out across the lake. “Maybe,” she allows.</p><p>Luke laughs freely. It feels good and entirely unfamiliar.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Luke receives letters from the people alive today because of Reid. They’re sent to him via an organization that serves as an intermediary between donors’ families and organ recipients. They talk of indescribable gratitude and second chances and dreams now being realized. They say they understand how difficult it must be, must have been, and they hope their messages offer some comfort. The first letter Luke receives is unexpected. It hits him hard in the gut, and he can barely glance at it. As others arrive, he does start to find solace. He smiles, tears in his eyes, as he reads and rereads. Some include pictures of happy people surrounded by loved ones. It is something, Luke decides. It is something.<p>The idea is strange to him. To this day, he never asks questions about where his kidney is from. He doesn’t want to know the answer. He doesn’t know if there’s anyone out there who wonders what ever happened to the kidney inside him. He doesn’t know if there’s anyone who even signed off on it in the first place.</p><p>After he reads a letter from a young college student who almost can run now after years of health problems and even eventually being strapped to an oxygen tank, Luke cuts a check for the organization. Although he has continued to work on the neuro wing, Luke hasn’t engaged in any other charitable work through his own foundation since…since everything happened. He knows that throwing money around doesn’t solve everything; he knows it can help a lot.</p><p>And a few weeks later, he is invited to an event in Brooklyn for the organization. It will be attended by major financial contributors, donor families, and transplant recipients. Luke stares at the invitation, and he swallows thickly. He wonders if <i>they</i> will be there, the people who have written him letters. He wonders if he will be able to stop himself from forcing his way through the crowd and staring into people’s eyes in the hopes of finding Reid looking back at him. He wonders if he will shake someone’ s hand and feel Reid’s skin again. A part of him is disgusted at the thought. Another part of him thinks that is why he accepts the invitation.</p><p>He flies there, closing his eyes against images of plane crashes, of mangled metal and fire and crushing pain. He feels the walls closing in around him and he flashes back to the day in the elevator with Reid. He thinks that Reid must have panicked that day on the tracks, that it’s the only explanation. Luke blames himself sometimes, for not insisting to go along. He could have talked Reid down. He could have prevented him from trying to cross in the first place.</p><p>As the plane prepares to take off, Luke takes a deep breath and searches for a happy place. He thinks of Reid telling him he loves him, of them kissing in Luke’s house, of them arguing over the wing as they walk up and down the halls of Memorial. He remembers, and he relaxes.</p><p>At the event, when people ask him who he is, why he’s so generous with his money when it comes to this cause, he tells them that he has had a transplant himself. He doesn’t tell anyone about Reid.</p><p>The next morning, he postpones his flight. He walks down to the square and watches the elderly men battle each other in matches of strategy and intelligence. He spots the man he's looking for almost immediately. Although Luke has not yet been able to watch the video his parents found, he knows it’s him. The man looks exactly like Lily described him once. And there is a family resemblance. Luke pauses to imagine what Reid would have looked like at that age. Luke thinks he would have been hot. Reid would have complained about needing glasses someday, and Luke would have teased him and called him a silver fox.</p><p>Luke makes his way over to the table where Angus Oliver sits. He stops right next to him and watches as he moves a piece. The man across from him, 85 years old at least, grumbles good-naturedly. Luke smiles softly to himself.</p><p>Angus Oliver looks up at him then.</p><p>“Kid, you’re blocking the light,” he says.</p><p>Luke takes a breath and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out the black knight, and he places it next to the board. Angus stares at it silently. Seconds stretch out, and then he looks over at his opponent.</p><p>“Sorry, Bill. I gotta play this kid here.”</p><p>By the third game, Angus starts speaking. He tells Luke of Reid’s childhood, of the verbal and sometimes physical battles between them, of Reid’s ultimate victory and his own vague regrets. He tells Luke that, besides the genius thing, Reid was simply a normal, shy boy who didn’t know how to talk to people. With a better parent, with his own parents, Reid might have overcome that and learned how to interact normally, politely. With Angus, Reid never stood a chance.</p><p>Luke finally speaks. He says he loves – loved Reid the way he is – was. He wouldn’t change one small bit of him, including his lack of social skills.</p><p>Luke loses seven games before the sun sets. He laughs as he thinks about how Reid would have responded to that, how he would have hid tips and lessons beneath endless teasing.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In sharp contrast to all the other recipients, whose letters Luke dutifully files away, Chris Hughes never thanks Luke. They never talk about it again after the day in Katie’s apartment when Luke put a stethoscope to Chris's chest and listened to the thumping of Reid’s heart. Luke thinks, if Chris ever did thank him, he’d probably punch him. He suspects Chris knows that.</p><p>Luke doesn’t even know, really, if Chris <i>does</i> feel grateful. Perhaps he feels guilty. Perhaps he’s angry at Reid for giving him the burden of such a horrible debt and leaving him with no way to repay it. Perhaps he resents or even regrets how things came about, with Katie breaking up with him, and Susan getting the job he may or may not have wanted, and getting himself stuck in Oakdale constantly monitoring his health instead of traipsing around the world like some sort of superhero doctor like before.</p><p>It doesn’t matter to Luke <i>what</i> Chris feels. All that matters is that he takes care of Reid’s heart. And so, they pass each other in the street; they see each other in the hospital; they wait in line near each other at Al’s or Java; they orbit around each other in a way that can’t be avoided in a small town like Oakdale. Sometimes, they share superficial pleasantries. Sometimes, they talk hospital business. Sometimes, they ignore each other as much as they can.</p><p>Luke knows, though, that as much as he tries to avoid Chris, he can’t stay away either. They’ll be inextricably linked to each other, possibly forever. Luke hates it, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. Because when he looks at Chris, he can see firsthand that some small part of Reid lives on.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>In the summer, Luke refuses to visit the pond. Ethan and Natalie swim in it on hot days, and there’s something vaguely disturbing about that. He knows the ashes must have diffused and dissolved throughout the water. But even still, he doesn’t want to think about Reid’s remains brushing up against their skin and getting stuck in their hair. He doesn’t want to see Reid’s resting place disturbed and agitated, not after it had been so still and quiet over the previous months when it was just him and Reid and sometimes Katie. But he doesn’t want to ruin his siblings’ fun either. He’s done that enough over the last few months.<p>So, he can’t go to the pond. But he’s having trouble feeling comfortable anywhere else in town either. It feels too small. Suffocating. He senses people staring at him, talking about him, worrying about him. He needs to get away. He goes to the west coast to visit Noah and Abigail, mostly because it’s as far from home as he can get in such short notice.</p><p>Noah is beyond ecstatic to see him. He meets Luke at the airport and kisses his cheek somewhat awkwardly before leading Luke to the baggage carousel. Luke worries this may have been a mistake, but he follows him anyway.</p><p>Noah lives with three other people. All of them claim to be actors, but they mostly work in food service. There’s one guy who barely acknowledges Luke’s (or Noah’s) presence, another guy who glares at him and stands too close to Noah to be entirely platonic, and a girl who only has eyes for Noah. Noah doesn’t really notice the attention of the man, but he flirts with the girl. Luke wonders if it’s unintentional – Noah always had a bad habit of leading women on, after all – or if it’s an attempt to punish and hurt Luke. If so, it doesn’t really work. Luke’s mostly concerned with making sure Noah is aware Luke will be sleeping on the couch during his visit.</p><p>For several days, he alternates between hanging out with Noah, visiting with Abigail, and just finding time for himself. In the mornings, he goes for runs before everyone wakes up, and most days he ends up by a quiet section along the beach that no swimmers or surfers ever seem to use. It’s peaceful.</p><p>One morning, he stays there for nearly an hour, until his cell phone buzzes with a text from a curious and worried Noah. Luke ignores the text and sits another five minutes. He smiles to himself as he imagines bringing Reid here. Maybe they’d be visiting because Noah won his first Oscar, and Reid would be making a million sarcastic comments and pretending he was no longer jealous of Noah, but he’d come anyway. He’d come because he’d know it was important to Luke to stay friends with Noah. Luke would reward him by showing him this section of the beach. In all honesty, Luke would probably seduce him. Reid would complain half-heartedly for a while about getting sand everywhere, but of course, he wouldn’t turn Luke down.</p><p>Luke’s smile fades. He needs to stop doing things like this. He will not have a future with Reid, and it’s time he admits that. Luke can feel the pain and the rage bubbling up inside him and before he even really knows what’s happening, he’s yelling.</p><p>“How dare you do this to me?” he shouts out to the ocean. “How could you leave me? Did you even think about me when you tried to be a goddamn superhero and beat a stupid train? Did you even think about us? Why was his life so much more important than yours? You asshole! You bastard! Why – why – ”</p><p>And when he loses words, he simply screams until his throat is raw and tears are streaming down his face. When he’s finished, he feels worn out, drained emotionally and physically, and yet strangely OK. Luke finally understands what catharsis is.</p><div class="center">
  <p>---</p>
</div>Later in the week, a few days before he intends to fly home, he stops off at Abigail’s apartment after his run. When he leaves, he runs into Molly just outside the building. It is the first time they’ve seen each other that week, and it’s awkward at first. But after a moment, the Holden-related tension lifts and Molly demands he eats with her, just the two of them.<p>They grab lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Chinese shop a few blocks away. They talk and they laugh, and it surprises Luke. He doesn’t really know Molly all that well; he never really tried to get to know her as much as the other kids did. But Molly is happy now, it’s obvious, and Luke finds he likes her this way.</p><p>“Have you met Abby’s boyfriend?” she asks.</p><p>“Not yet. Don’t know if I’ll get a chance.”</p><p>“It’s pretty serious, I think. She’s starting to call him her soul mate.”</p><p>“Let’s hope this one isn’t married,” Luke teases. “But I’m glad for her. She deserves happiness.”</p><p>“We all do.”</p><p>Luke nods slowly. Molly looks hesitant, like she’s about to ask him an uncomfortable question, and Luke rushes to speak. “What about you? Met anyone new?”</p><p>“No, not yet,” Molly says graciously. “I’m enjoying the single life right now. But I imagine my soul mate is out there somewhere.”</p><p>“I like your attitude, Molly. I hope for your sake you’re right.”</p><p>“Oh, Luke. That sounds a little cynical coming from you. You were always the great, optimistic romantic.”</p><p>Luke shrugs and stares out the window. “I’m just not sure I believe in soul mates anymore.”</p><p>Molly doesn’t say anything.</p><p>“Maybe I just don’t want to,” Luke whispers. “I can’t stand to think I may have lost mine.”</p><p>“Luke,” Molly says slowly. “I think the worst thing that could come out of this is if you stop believing in love.”</p><p>Luke looks at her, and he exhales shakily.</p><p>“Did he tell you what he told me the day of the wedding? Well…non-wedding?”</p><p>Luke shakes his head. “No, never. Not truthfully, anyway.”</p><p>“He said,” Molly begins. She pauses for a moment. “He said that nothing’s certain. Nothing’s forever in this world. As human beings, we’re hard-wired to cope with that. Things change, people move on. I think that’s true. It’s what gave me the strength to find my backbone and now look at me. My life is carrying on, better than ever. I’m happy. I’m hopeful for the future. I think in time you will be too. I think we can survive anything, you know? After everything you’ve been through, you should know that better than anyone. I think you’re living proof of the power and – and resilience of the human spirit.”</p><p>Luke smiles, fighting the sting of sudden tears.</p><div class="center">
  <p>---</p>
</div>Two days later, Luke returns to Oakdale. He is quiet as he waits for his commercial flight to be called. Noah waits with him at the airport. He talks incessantly, not noticing Luke’s lack of response or perhaps simply not caring about it. He talks about all the things he wished they had had time to do. He talks about all the things they should do during Luke’s next visit.<p>An announcement sparks activity. People prepare to board the plane, and Luke will be in the next group to be seated. He stands up and grabs his carry-on bag. Noah stands next to him nervously. And then he leans closer, lips pursed. Luke immediately turns his head so the kiss lands on his cheek instead. When Noah pulls back, he looks rejected and hurt. Luke sighs.</p><p>“I don’t understand,” Noah whispers. “Don’t you even want to see if – ”</p><p>“No,” Luke interrupts. He looks off to the side, trying to find the right words. He doesn’t want to hurt Noah, but he’s so tired of trying to protect his feelings. Noah’s refusal to see the truth is what causes Luke to have to hurt him again and again in the first place. “I told you a long time ago that I made a promise to myself once. The right guy or no guy at all.”</p><p>“And I’m not the right guy?” Noah asks bitterly.</p><p>Luke shakes his head. “Not anymore, not for me. I also said once, remember, that I needed to find someone who will choose me. Well…<i>I</i> choose me. This time, I choose <i>me</i>. I need to be alone for a while. I need to figure out my life and my future, and not just jump into an…ill-advised relationship because I’m hurting and don’t want to be alone. But what I know for certain is, I will never find my way back to you. I don’t want to. I meant what I said – we aren’t right for each other anymore. That doesn’t change simply because Reid is…because he’s…” Luke's voice catches in his throat. “We didn’t break up because of him, and you know it. I want to figure out how to be friends, Noah. I want you in my life, but just as friends.”</p><p>“I don’t think I can do that,” Noah says.</p><p>Luke nods. “OK. You know where to find me, if you change your mind.”</p><p>The flight attendant calls Luke’s boarding group, and he watches as people line up outside the gate. He looks at Noah again, and he sighs.</p><p>“You know, both Mark and Pam are crazy in love with you. You’d have your pick,” he says, trying to sound light-hearted with teasing.</p><p>Noah stares after him, flabbergasted. Luke doesn’t look back as he walks through the door towards the plane. Later, when Casey informs him that Noah has decided he’s bisexual and is now dating a girl, Luke pretends to be surprised. He even tries really, really hard to be hurt. To be honest, he doesn’t care one way or the other.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Nine and a half months after…the accident, the neuro wing formally opens. To Luke's shock, hundreds of people crowd into the hallway leading to the wing, and they’re not all from Oakdale. Bob, it turns out, had contacted all of Reid’s former patients from around the country, some from around the world. Anyone who could travel made it there.<p>They hold a memorial service where people come up one-by-one and talk of Reid. At first, Luke can barely listen. After Chris’s transplant, so many people thought so highly of Reid. Luke couldn’t help but scoff at the too-little, too-late canonization. But now, as a teenage girl speaks of being able to grow up with her mother around, as an older gentleman cries over the memory of the few extra years he got to spend with his wife, Luke starts to really believe them when they use the word hero. Maybe it is true, for these people at least.</p><p>After the memorial, Bob describes the cutting-edge research and care the wing will be able to offer. Luke cuts the ribbon. Katie sobs while Henry holds her. People begin to stroll around, examining the new patient rooms, operating theaters, family lounges. Luke simply stops two feet into the hallway.</p><p>There is a large portrait of Reid. It is based on the staff picture taken when he officially started at Memorial. He’s not smiling, but he’s not scowling either, so Luke considers it a win.</p><p>Kim stands next to him, and neither of them speaks for a moment. Then Kim, fighting a smile, observes, “Always such a pleasant man, wasn’t he?”</p><p>Luke grins. “He had his moments.”</p><p>“I suppose you knew him better than the rest of us. And you certainly knew how to put a smile on his face."</p><p>Luke casts a sidelong smirk at Kim.</p><p>“Oh, I didn’t mean it like <i>that</i>,” she scolds, and Luke laughs.</p><p>Kim sighs. “I couldn’t understand what Bob saw in him. I thought he was the worst possible choice to carry on my husband’s work and legacy. But after what he did for Chris and after listening to these people today…” Kim shrugs. “He really was the best kind of doctor. Selfless dedication to his patients. Intelligent and relentless. A cheerful bedside manner doesn’t really mean all that much, I guess. He really was a hero.”</p><p>Luke stares at the picture again, then he shakes his head. “No, I…I think that cheapens it somehow. He was just a flawed man who did his best. I loved that about him.”</p><p>Kim doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Maybe you’re right,” she agrees.</p><p>Luke and his family leave the hospital an hour or so later. And when they get home, Luke has made up his mind. He stops his parents in the living room and waits for the kids to wander off.</p><p>“Reid,” he starts, breaking off quickly when his voice wobbles. “He spent every day doing something he loved and was passionate about. I think the best way I can honor him is to do the same. I can’t sit around here doing nothing anymore. I can’t just coast through life in this – this haze I’ve been in.”</p><p>Lily nods, uncertain as to what Luke is saying.</p><p>“I agree,” Holden replies. “I’m glad you recognize that.”</p><p>“So I’m leaving town,” Luke declares.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Luke moves to a small studio apartment in Chicago. Some people think he’s running away. Some people tell him it’s about time. Luke doesn’t explain himself to any of them. He’s made this decision for himself, and he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.<p>He drives there, all the belongings he thinks he will need stuffed into the backseat and trunk of the car. He’s stuck for nearly two minutes at the first railroad crossing he comes to. He breathes deeply, and he looks both ways about a dozen times. He ignores the honking from the car behind him, and finally he guns the accelerator. Each crossing after that gets a little bit easier.</p><p>He has barely been there a week when Katie mails him a package. It is a framed photograph of Snyder Pond. Luke hangs it above his desk and stares at it whenever he experiences writer's block.</p><p>He writes. With pen and paper because it always feels so much more real and immediate than the clack of computer keys. At first, all he can write is tragedy. Death and loss and pain and suffering. Angsty, emo, teenage bullshit. He writes poems and short stories and essays. He writes the opening line of a novel and gets no further. Anything he does manage to complete, he mails out to publishers, magazines, newspapers, even some university departments. Everything comes back rejected.</p><p>One year to the date of Reid’s…, one full year later, he takes out the three pieces of tangible items he has of Reid. There’s a shirt that Luke snagged before he and Katie took the rest of the decent-quality clothes to the Goodwill. There’s Reid’s stethoscope. And there’s the chess piece. Luke lays each of them out on his bed, and he sits cross-legged behind them.</p><p>He remembers his whole body shaking as he slid his hands over Reid's shoulders and chest while Reid kissed him. He remembers flirting as he tried to teach Reid how to fake people skills. He remembers Reid’s self-satisfied yet almost bashful smile as he hustled Luke, and his open vulnerability as Luke forced him to talk about feelings and the past. For the first time, Luke is able to remember without unbearable pain, without barely checked anger, without the overwhelming feeling of loss and squandered potential. Instead, he laughs through almost-happy tears. He touches the soft fabric of the shirt and the flat surface of the stethoscope's diaphragm and the curve of the knight’s head.</p><p>And then, and then, he holes himself up for weeks. Months. He eats when he’s hungry and sleeps when he’s tired and goes to the bathroom when he needs to. But virtually every other moment of the day, he writes. The novel is more or less autobiographical until the last chapter. <i>This</i> couple gets their happy ending.</p><p>As he types up his chicken scratch, he revises and edits. And when he finishes, he sighs. He prints it out, wraps it carefully, kisses the package and mails it out.</p><p>It gets accepted.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>In the end, Luke decides to move back to Oakdale and his family and Reid. He comes back with an advance for his next book, and he takes over the foundation again. He sells Grimaldi Shipping with the stipulation that no one loses their job.<p>Before he leaves Chicago, 18 months after Reid – and he can say it now – died, Luke steps into a dark tattoo parlor. He gets a black knight inked above his heart. The tattoo artist comments that Luke must really love chess, and Luke just smiles. When he leaves, the sun is shining on his face. He looks up, closes his eyes, and breathes.</p><div class="center">
  <p>**</p>
</div>Luke and Reid never made love. They never went to the farmer’s market or bowling or to a museum or to a ball game or swimming in the pond or to a movie.<p>But they did play chess. They got trapped in an elevator once. They saved his career in Dallas. They made out whenever they could but not nearly often enough. They built something that will save hundreds of people and live on even after Luke too is gone. Reid taught Luke who he was and who he could be and who he <i>wanted</i> to be. They teased each other, and challenged each other, and brought out the best and worst in each other.</p><p>They fell in love. And Luke will always have that.</p><div class="center">
  <p>The End</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A/N: This story was really hard for me to write, not just the emotional stuff, but the format. Present tense is not my natural style and I don’t like the way it feels or looks in a storytelling format (ugh, the weirdest thing is switching back and forth between narrative and past-tense dialogue!). But I think this one needed to be written like this to really capture what Luke was going through. I think often grief and loss results in a kind of murky haze that just forces you to go through your daily routines. For a good chunk of this story, Luke wasn’t living; he was surviving one moment to the next (and doing a piss-poor job of that). He was trying to run away from his past (Reid) in a sense, even though that was also all he could think about, and he didn’t want to look to or plan for a future without Reid. And so…present tense. I hope the style got that feeling across.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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